As electronic commerce becomes more prevalent, consumers are purchasing more products through electronic sources, such as online web sites. Products, such as recorded audio and video, books, and other media, are presented for sale on “product pages” that include information about the products, such as photographs, descriptions, availability, consumer reviews, and lists of related products. Such products are ordinarily associated with authors, performers, composers, and other types of entities that produce the products. For example, a book has an associated author entity, and a music recording such as a Compact Disc or audio file has an associated artist entity. A particular entity can be associated with multiple products, such as several different books authored or published by the same entity.
Information about these entities, such as biographical summaries and links to product pages for the entity's products, can be presented on what are referred to herein as “entity pages.” Entity pages can also include samples of the entity's work, discussion forums, and other information related to the entity. For example, a particular artist, such as the English rock band Pink Floyd, may have an entity page that presents images of the members of Pink Floyd, a history of the band, and short descriptions and images of Pink Floyd's albums, with links to album product pages. Thus the entity page does not necessarily present a direct purchase option for a product, but does provide information and links to product pages that do provide purchase options such as purchase buttons or “add to cart” buttons.
Entity pages can represent other types of entities as well, such as brands that encompass multiple products, and any other entities that have associated products. In contrast to product pages, entity pages are ordinarily non-purchasable, i.e., the entity pages do not directly represent purchasable products, but instead include information about, and links to, product pages that can be used to purchase the products. Entity pages are similar to product pages in that both types of pages are accessible by web addresses such as Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and are therefore ordinarily accessed by users via web links that appear on other pages.
A product page can also include a link to the entity page for that product, to allow a user to find out about the entity and other products by the entity. In another example, a link to the entity page can appear in the results of a search for a query that is relevant to the entity or the entity's products. For example, a search query for a particular author can produce a list of links to product pages for the author's books, along with a link to an entity page that provides details about the author. Existing search engines place the entity page at a fixed position in the search results, such as the second-highest position. However, the second-highest position is not always an appropriate position for the entity page, because, for example, the product pages near the second position are not necessarily for that entity. Placement of the entity page at a fixed position can therefore result in poorly-organized search results and a diminished user experience.